Survival (10 page)

She slid her cell from her pocket and called Matt’s sat phone, praying he would answer. It wasn’t her day. The call went directly to voice mail. She checked to confirm that the phone was set to vibrate and slipped it back into her pocket, her anxiety building with each passing minute.

The rumble of an approaching boat drew her attention, and she focused her glasses on the vessel entering the harbor mouth. Its running lights were barely visible, and she couldn’t make out the name on the dull green hull. She checked her watch. That was probably her boat. Fifteen minutes late.

She didn’t have to speculate for long. The vessel continued to the main dock and tied off alongside another boat. The engines died three minutes later. She watched, her heart in her throat, waiting to see the tiny figure of her Hannah come on deck.

Two deck hands hosed down the transom and then went to work on the exposed surfaces. Ten minutes stretched into thirty, but nobody got off the boat. Jet controlled her breathing, her heart rate slow. It was what it was. This was a game of chess. If Matt and Hannah were on the boat, they were down below. Whoever was gunning for her was trying to draw her out, make her show her hand and come to them.

Because they knew her weakness. They knew she’d have to confirm whether they were on the boat or not.

But they hadn’t bargained on Jet being as disciplined as she was, or taking overkill precautions.

Which was her edge.

They’d underestimated her.

And the world was littered with the bodies of others who had done the same.

Chapter 14

The harbor was still, save only for the sound of small waves lapping at the wharf and the occasional splash as a seal dropped from a rock into the water for an invigorating dip. The clouds had thickened, blocking out most of the light from the stippling of stars, and in the distance, somewhere near Colombia, veins of lightning streaked through the turbid vault of the night sky.

Two hours after the
Paloma
had moored, a man finally emerged from the cabin, climbed across to the other boat, and made his way down the dock and up to the restaurant. This man was no fisherman. The clothes didn’t fit correctly and his hair was too neatly cut. She followed his progress until he went inside and made her decision.

She had to know if her baby was on the boat.

And there was only one way to confirm it.

Jet took a long look around the waterfront, and when she had reassured herself that it would be almost impossible to spot her in dark clothes, unzipped her bag and withdrew a long-sleeved black T-shirt and a pair of knee-length black cargo shorts. She desperately wished that instead of a teddy bear she’d bought a locking survival knife, but it was too late for regrets.

Because the clock was ticking, and if her daughter and Matt were on the boat, it was up to her to get them off.

Ten minutes later, her head bobbed out of the water near the
Paloma
’s stern. She listened, gripping the dock, which she’d swum under for cover. Music played from the boat’s cabin area, a cheap radio emitting a bouncing beat as a woman sang about broken hearts and the promise of a new day. She held still while water ran down her face, waiting to hear something that would tip her off about how many were in the boat.

The water was warm, like a bath, for which she was grateful. She had no worries about hypothermia or losing her mental or physical edge from being submerged, which meant there was no real hurry. Any watchers would be waiting for her to come down the pier, not from the sea, which is why she’d chosen that approach. Her hope was that by the time anyone on land realized she’d been on and off the boat, she would be long gone.

She pulled herself onto the transom platform and then crept onto the rear deck. Glancing around, she spotted the gleaming blade of a filleting knife atop a flat plate mounted next to a primitive sink. Her bare feet made no noise as she edged to the knife, and within moments she had it held close to her leg and was cautiously inching toward the metal cabin door.

Leon yawned and shook his head to clear it. He was bone tired, and in spite of Igor’s assurances that the woman was likely to come, she hadn’t, and it had been hours. He privately thought that the Brazilian had bungled the entire job, but he wasn’t going to say anything. Igor was, after all, the customer, and the customer was always right. But as far as Leon could tell, they’d all spent a ton of time and energy only to come up empty-handed.

He glanced with disgust at the captain and his crew, all busy at the galley table playing cards, smoking, and knocking back a bottle of local coconut rum. The boat smelled like a latrine, and the fishermen not much better. He was counting the seconds until the dim Brazilian called it a night and admitted defeat – Leon wanted off the boat now so he could spend his cut of the money at the casino that doubled as a high-end whorehouse, with dozens of gorgeous young professionals from Colombia draped around the tables waiting for high rollers to show up for a little diversion.

Instead he was stuck in a floating cesspool with a bunch of toothless peasants who could barely count. How an adventure hijacking a thousand-foot container ship had degraded into this idiocy was beyond him – it had been a series of stupidities from the word go.

Igor had finally run out of patience and gone to the restaurant to get something to eat after having gone hungry for twenty-four hours, and Leon’s stomach was growling a reminder that he hadn’t eaten either. He considered asking the captain what sort of food was aboard, but one look at the men’s grimy hands and another whiff of the fish stink that permeated everything soured him on the idea.

He pushed himself to his feet and tapped one of his last cigarettes out of a hard pack. Looking around, he withdrew a lighter from his pants pocket and moved to the cabin stairs. “I’m going to get a little fresh air,” he announced. Nobody responded. The men were already half drunk on the rum, and if their lingering passenger wanted to dance naked on the back deck, that was his business.

Leon paused at the door. Igor had warned him to stay out of sight.

Then again, Igor wasn’t here. He was in the air-conditioned restaurant feasting on seafood while Leon breathed farts and fish guts.

The door opened with a squeal and he mounted the three steps, the fresh air a blessed relief after hours in the confines of the cabin. He lit his cigarette, the flash of the flame blinding him for a split second, and barely registered movement behind him before his world exploded in a starburst of color and his legs went out from under him.

The freshly lit cigarette hissed when it hit the condensation on the deck. Jet caught Leon under his arms and lowered him to the dank metal. The wooden handle of the filleting knife stuck out of the base of his skull where she’d severed his spinal cord with a single practiced thrust. There was almost no blood on the blade when she withdrew it and wiped it clean on his shirt, and after another glance around, she felt along his waist and found the pistol she knew would be there.

She freed it and inspected it, confirmed there was a round chambered, and waited by Leon’s body. After five minutes nobody had come to check on him, and all she could hear was the raucous sound of a drunken card game, the insults increasingly colorful. Jet took a deep breath and moved to the cabin entry, anxious to get the inevitable over with.

The captain and crew froze, cards gripped in their hands and cigarettes dangling from slack lips, at the apparition in the doorway – a dripping wet woman holding a gun on them.

“Where are the girl and the man you picked up?” she asked, her voice low and the pistol unwavering.

The captain shook his head. “We never picked them up. There was a change of plans, the man said.”

“What man? The one who just came out?”

“No. The other one. He went to get something to eat.”

“But there was no girl. You’re sure.”

“Of course.”

Jet debated killing them, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. They were innocent, caught in the middle of an ugly situation. She motioned with the gun. “Two ways this can go. If you say anything about having seen me, the guy you picked up on the boat will kill you. Choice B is you chug the rest of that rotgut and I shut the door, and you keep playing cards and never saw anything. So the question really is, how long do you want to live? Is tonight the night you want to die?”

“What about the other one?” the captain asked.

“You don’t have to worry about him. This is his gun.”

“What about the body?”

“It’ll disappear when I leave. In fact, if you know what’s good for you, you might want to start the engine in about three minutes and get the hell out of here. Go for a long cruise. Maybe a week somewhere off the coast, and let this all blow over.”

The captain put his cards down. “Sounds like we’re getting underway.”

“Give me three minutes. And not a word, or you’re dead men.”

The captain held her stare. “I believe you.”

The sound of footsteps moving down the pier startled them. Jet shook her head. “Too late. He’s coming back. You never saw anything or you’re dead. Trust me on that.”

Jet turned, any attempt at stealth useless now. Gripping the pistol, she moved to the side of the boat just as the man approaching from the restaurant spotted her. Their eyes locked and he pulled a gun from his belt, and then she was in the air, diving over the side, her splash throwing water onto the deck where Leon’s dead form hugged the deck in the darkness.

Leon saw the blur of movement on the boat, and then the woman. He was freeing his gun from his waistband, but it was too late – she was already in the water. He debated shooting at where she’d dived, but it would bring everyone in the harbor down on them. He swore and searched the inky water, but it was no good. She was gone.

He pulled his sat phone from his pocket and dialed Fernanda.

“She came to the boat, but she got away,” he said.

“What! How?”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s still somewhere in the harbor. You said your Panamanian had contacts with the cops?”

“That’s right.”

“Call him and get them the photo of the woman. And see if you can have them do a roadblock. There’s only one way off this peninsula.”

“Why do I tell them they should care?”

He looked down at Leon’s body. “She murdered a defenseless man on the boat. She’s a killer. Armed and dangerous. If there’s such a thing as shoot to kill in Panama, this woman is a prime target.”

He could hear the smile in Fernanda’s voice. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Good. I’ll have the locals start looking for her.” He paused. “These idiots must have tipped her off somehow. She was expecting trouble. She swam all the way to the boat to avoid being seen.”

“I told them she was a pro and that they should lie low.”

“Obviously not low enough.”

“I’ll call you back when we have the cops in the bag.”

He looked at the water a final time and considered killing the captain and crew, but discarded that option as counterproductive. If they’d seen anything, they were witnesses who could substantiate the identity of the murderer. He tucked his gun back into his waistband and pulled his loose shirt over it to conceal the bulk.

“Perfect. I’ll get to work.”

Chapter 15

SW of Nuquí, Chocó, Colombia

Matt started awake. He listened, senses instantly on alert.

There.

Branches cracking as bodies moved through the brush.

He gently moved Hannah’s head and sat up, flare pistol in one hand, flashlight in the other, and peeked through the mesh window.

Someone was coming. He could see the dim glow of lights in the jungle moving down the trail toward the tent.

Now fully awake he checked the time: eleven. He’d got a whopping three hours of sleep. But he was used to worse, and it would have to be enough.

He quickly unzipped the tent entry and slid out. Whoever was nearing would be there in a few more moments. And in rural Colombia, he was under no illusion that they’d necessarily be friendly, especially if they were moving around the jungle in the dead of night.

Three men carrying nets, buckets, and ancient fishing rods appeared, talking in low voices, their clothes shabby and soiled. The lead man, perhaps early thirties and short, with dark skin, ebony hair cropped close to his skull, and a mustache, stopped when he spotted the tent and held his arm out to the side.

Matt studied the intruders from his position behind a mangrove tree. They whispered to each other, and the lead man shined his lamp on the tent, curiosity written across his face. They approached, murmuring among themselves, and Matt stepped from behind the tree and showed himself after slipping the flare gun into his belt.

The men froze at the sight of a disheveled gringo materializing out of nowhere in the middle of the jungle, two days’ growth on his face. The lead man’s mouth fell open, and when he spoke, he sounded unsure of himself.

“God. You scared us.” He hesitated. “What are you doing out here?”

“Ran into some problems with my boat,” Matt said, as though that explained everything. “How far are we from civilization?”

The lead man grinned yellow teeth at him, and the others chuckled.

“Civilization? You could argue that for days. But there’s a road maybe thirty kilometers inland.”

“Thirty kilometers?”

“Yes. But you have to cross a river that’s pretty wide right now from the rains. You need a boat to do it if you don’t know the shallow spots.”

Matt’s face darkened. “You going fishing?” he asked, looking at their gear.

“Yes. Better at night.”

“Are you from around here?”

The man nodded. “A village near the Arusi River.”

“We’re in Colombia, right?”

The man laughed good-naturedly. “Of course.”

Matt thought for a long moment. “I don’t suppose cell phones work out here, do they?”

The fisherman smiled. “There’s actually a tower near the road. My phone works, although the signal gets terrible down here near the beach. Too far away.”